How to Resize an Animated GIF Without Breaking the Animation
Resizing a still image is easy. Resizing an animated GIF can go wrong in two ways: the tool only keeps the first frame, or the result is full of glitches. Here's why, and how to avoid it.
Why animated GIFs break
To save space, most animated GIFs are optimized: after the first frame, each frame only stores the rectangle that changed. A general image editor that resizes frames one at a time, without rebuilding them, scales those small rectangles separately. Their edges no longer line up, and you get flickering seams.
Other tools simply open the GIF as an image, which loads only frame one. The output is a still picture.
How to resize cleanly
A GIF-aware resizer, like gifsicle, handles the frame rectangles together, so every frame lands in the right place at the new size. It also keeps the delays and the loop setting.
The GIF resizer uses gifsicle compiled to WebAssembly:
- Drop your GIF.
- Type a new width (the height follows to keep the aspect ratio), or pick 25%, 50% or 75%.
- Resize and download.
It runs in your browser, so the GIF is never uploaded.
Exact sizes for emoji and avatars
Platforms that use square images, like Discord emoji (128×128) and Slack emoji, need the GIF to be square. Unlock the aspect ratio and type both sides. If the GIF isn't square to begin with, it will be stretched, so crop it first.
Smaller dimensions, smaller file
Halving the width and height leaves a quarter of the pixels. That's often the single biggest file-size win, bigger than any compression setting. If you need to hit a size limit, resize first and then run the GIF through the compressor.